by Angitha Pradeep
Smart buildings: Climate change, resource scarcity, rapid urbanisation, and digitalisation are amongst the many megatrends that are reshaping our world. With the addition of a global pandemic over the past two years, the way we use and interact with buildings has also changed.
Buildings need to evolve to ensure that they are not only comfortable, safe, and secure but also efficient and resilient for a sustainable future. Every building starts at a different point on the sustainability journey – this creates unique sets of efficiency challenges and opportunities when it comes to building operation and maintenance.
Challenges impacting building operation and maintenance
The pressure to improve a building’s performance has never been more significant. Nowadays, building owners and operators face increased regulatory requirements, especially in energy consumption, due to the need to achieve carbon neutrality and sustainability goals.
In addition, budgets are tighter with rising operating costs from inflation and lack of resources. Many buildings also have ageing equipment or assets and different systems or inconsistent operations across multiple facilities, making it even more challenging to achieve efficiency in maintenance.
Building operators are also experiencing staffing issues and a shrinking skilled workforce. Managing everyday issues required to provide high levels of convenience, comfort, and security to building occupants becomes overwhelming. Service teams, meant to improve operations, are now responsible for servicing additional space and are stretched thin, addressing complaints, notifications, alarms, and faults. This can sometimes lead to deferred maintenance, further contributing to poor building performance.
Today, 55% of maintenance is reactive, resulting in more costly repairs, downtime, and disruptions, affecting productivity and profitability. Digitalisation enables automation, increases data quality and transparency, and improves the ability to apply advanced technology – paving the way for more efficient and sustainable building operations. The transition from reactive to proactive, predictive, prescriptive maintenance transforms traditional buildings into smart buildings for a more sustainable future.
Leading the smart building revolution
Smart buildings interact with people, systems, and external elements. They learn from past experiences and real-time input and can adapt to the needs of the people and the businesses within them by increasing comfort, efficiency, resiliency, and safety.
Smart buildings require digitalisation – physically connecting systems to the outside world where information can be accessed remotely, at any time and place, providing data transparency. Digitalisation transforms a traditional building, where services are typically reactive and performed onsite, to a smart building, where remote diagnostics are conducted, and services are performed remotely or onsite.
Proactive maintenance delivered through a properly executed, data-driven digital service programme can increase the ability to identify and resolve issues earlier, further reducing risk and downtime, increasing the life of your systems, and enabling even greater efficiencies and savings. In addition, by leveraging the power of digital technology and data, you can make better-informed decisions to achieve your unique business goals.
We understand that every building has unique challenges and goals; every smart building journey is different. So, wherever you are on the journey towards a smart building, our suite of holistic onsite and remote building services and team of building experts are there to manage your systems and support you every step of the way.
Delivering building performance like no other
Rather than managing building systems in silos, spaces are serviced holistically to enhance building performance. This integrated approach to building services provides insights that help you make informed decisions to achieve your financial and operational goals. As a result, we can help you drive revenue and growth, reduce costs, meet sustainability and regulatory goals, optimise performance, and enhance occupant experience.
Innovative approach and portfolio of services to accomplish your goals
From planning a service programme aligned with your unique goals, optimising your existing technologies, using data to improve operations and maintenance, and supporting you along the way, we can help you achieve measurable results with data-driven reporting and transparency. Our comprehensive portfolio of building services and solutions include building automation, fire safety, mechanical, electrical, energy, security, and e-mobility.
There has never been a more urgent need to create resilient and sustainable buildings. It is essential to ensure that buildings remain fit for purpose for years to come while managing resources and costs more effectively.
As the complexity of building operations grows, so does the landscape of performance optimisation. With smart buildings, we are shaping an ecosystem connecting the real and digital worlds. As a focused technology company, we combine the real and the digital worlds and help customers meet our time’s significant challenges. We believe that together with our customers, we can create technology to transform the every day for a better tomorrow.
